8.28.2008

Lost in thought, walking to the places I have to go to during no particular day, I feel like I'm in a racial vacuum...

During this moment, I'm completely unaware of myself as a social being--that is, of my labels as a woman, Latina, etc. I'm not really interacting with others, I'm just passing through blurs of people that I pay no attention to as I cross streets and pass buildings. I'm not even conscious of my walking. I'm practically in a dream.

It's a strange thing, that lapse in time that occurs when I'm getting from one place to another. It's not that I'm not appreciative of the day--I notice the green leaves and blue skies I pass along the way. I'm still adhering to the laws of society, but in auto-pilot mode.

I can never consciously experience these racially-vacuous dream lapses, I can only reflect upon them afterward. I wake up from my dream and I'm left with only a few remnants of the event.

I can't assume you go through this moment, but it feels so natural that I wonder if others do go through it. My question is, is this a way of attempting to escape the burden of racialized identity, or is it rather a brief return to a natural state before and beyond social identity? Both and neither?

In short, I think moments like these matter because they show that I cannot be my social self every single second of the day. Race, gender, sexuality, class. They are not a part of the fiber of my being, they are only roles I assume when I interact with others.

In this way, double consciousness can also be the literal state of the term--being conscious of your consciousness. That is, being aware of your awareness as a socialized being intersected by race, class and gender.

...The moment I hear "hi" from a friend who sees me walking by, I suddenly notice the dripping paint of society all over me. I suddenly become aware of my name, place, and time in society. No longer just a body, but now back to Sara, back to Latina in 2008, back to California-born daughter of Argentine immigrants.

8.18.2008

Last year around this time Nobel Prize laureate, James Watson, shocked the scientific community with his ludicrous claim that race is a scientific category.

Watson, you may remember, won the Nobel Prize for his research that led (in part) to the 'discovery' of DNA.

So, it is October again. Now comes a report that Akhil Bakshi, a fellow of the prestigious Royal Geographic Society and celebrity photographer, is pushing the preposterous claim "that blacks, whites and Asians have different ape ancestors."

8.16.2008

I am really uncomfortable with how a lot of vegan cooking is described as “exotic” (to whom?). It assumes so much about the audience racially & culturally, & as well is loaded with really creepy connotations — the exotic is there to be conquered, mastered; it’s there purely to titillate your (white/Western/etc.) self (which also implies that white people have no culture — a convenient excuse used by people participating in cultural appropriation, but not actually true). It’s a “safe” way to imagine you’re experiencing other cultures without, you know, having to do that pesky thing known as actually engaging with the people whose cultures you’re attempting to eat via their food.

8.11.2008

Asabagna blogs on white people and no longer expecting them to change a system that benefits them:

In regards to the eurocentric dominant culture, this has meant four things. One, I no longer felt any responsibility to be their teacher (and/or confessor… as a way for them to ease the angst of their white privilege) on the effects of white supremacy - eurocentric superiority thinking and practice on people of colour. Two, I had no desire for the material and/or societal trinkets which signifies “success” in their society. I could no longer be bought. My soul… beliefs, values and principles… are more important to me than to “gainthe world”. Three, I don’t expect anything from white people. I don’t expect them to be fair. I don’t expect them to be just. I don’t expect them to be empathetic to my situation or to the struggles of people of African descent. I don’t expect them to take any sort of responsibility for their past, present or future behaviours. Finally, I care about all people… regardless of nationality, ethnicity, colour, religion, gender, age and sexual orientation… who are oppressed and/or taken advantage of. I don’t compare and rate oppressions on a scale. However with that being said, the issues concerning people of African descent are first and foremost in mind… because I am one of them… and what we need to do, not only to overcome to survive, but more importantly, to empower ourselves to live, is the core of my cause.

8.10.2008

...race is not real; it is a socially constructed phenomenon based solely on visible physically differences. Race is so fictitious a concept that in the post-emancipation U.S. a man could be considered Black in one state, and White in another!

Although race is not real, the effects of racial differentiation; however, are very real. Not every racial group experiences racism in the same manner or to the same degree. Racialized groups (those who society labels “visible minorities”) continually face institutionalized, racial discrimination based solely on stereotypes attached to our skin tone.

8.09.2008

Bernie Mac is a lot like George Lopez to me–I had some real problems with a lot of his material, but I respected him as a true comedian. He was an observer of people, and those observations, more often than not, were funny as hell because they pointed out human and cultural truisms and flaws that were embarassing, endearing, interesting and enraging.

He material was sexist and homophobic, but he was also one of the few that discussed po’ black communities (as in poverty stricken and devistated, not just the idealized ‘poor’ that Cosby and other comedians of color talk about or idealized gangsta ‘poor’ that younger comedians like Cedric the Entertainer riff on) , drug addiction and how it affects the children, the addicted person and older family members.

I mean, the clip below has got some homophobia and abelism that really rides the line between being a joke and being fucking mean.

Beyonce's latest L'Oreal advertisment has really struck a chord with the light-skinned/dark-skinned black divide. We all know celebrities get photoshopped, but putting my sentiments about that aside, I agree that "white washing" Beyonce is going way too far.

I remember for a short time people had issues with Angelina Jolie being "ethnicized" for some movie role. That was controversial, but this is beyond controversial to me. This is just embittering:

Anyone who saw the Féria hair color ad in this month's Elle (pictured, left) might have had to do a double-take to make sure it was really Beyoncé, and not the long-lost twin of the light-skinned model on the product's box. Today, in a NY Post report cheekily headlined "O, RÉALLY?," L'Oréal reps deny altering the singer's features and skin tone. The chairman of the media-monitoring committee of the National Association of Black Journalists even chimed in, arguing that "magazines have to be sensitive to perceptions that light-skinned African Americans are more acceptable."

By now, most of us are used to pretty much all commercial images of celebrities getting the Photoshopped-into-oblivion treatment. But shouldn't there be some sort of line here? We don't know exactly what or who is responsible -- severe makeup? odd lighting? digital alteration? too much time indoors? -- for making Beyoncé practically unrecognizable. Whatever the culprit, whitewashing a well-known face in the interest of selling hair color (that is wrong for 'yoncers anyway) takes the "anything for a great shot" argument a little too far.

What do you think -- does the ad offend you, or is this sort of "optimized" commercial image safe in the plasticine land of Fictionarnia we've all come to generally accept at this point, and therefore unworthy of a second thought?

It's possible that Beyonce comes out lighter if you use flash when taking a picture. But come on, this is an advertisement for L'Oreal...they're not stupid, they know exactly what they were doing and they need to fess up.

My one question is, did Beyonce get a say in the use of this final picture? I wouldn't necessarily give her the benefit of the doubt in all this. I mean, she's a huge celebrity, I can't imagine that she'd allow them to publish the photo without her final approval...but what do I know.

8.05.2008

Tammerie, who is pursuing a dissertation on anti-racism and Christian theology, blogs:

By the numbers, white people still hold a preponderance of the positions that count, out of proportion to our presence in the population, from which I would argue we are able to maintain white-privileging control over the systems and institutions that shape our society, including business, legislative and judicial systems, property sales and management, education and health care. (Note that the percentages of non-white, non-male legislators was considered too small to be tabulated.)

Of course, not all white people are employed in positions that afford economic power and privilege. Whites represented 44 percent of the 37 million U.S. citizens living below the poverty line in 2006. The (historically constructed) sad thing about that is that most of the white people living in poverty think they have more in common with wealthy white people than they do people of color also dealing with poverty. And that keeps folks from banding together and working together to insist on change in an unjust reality.

Double Consciousness is a term that comes from the pen of W. E. B. Du Bois which was made popular in his book The Souls of Black Folk. For Du Bois it meant “always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” and of having two identities, one being American and the other being a person of color. “Two warring ideals in one dark body.” The title is also a pun on the fact that the two blog founders/editors are of different ethnicities which obviously effects the way they perceive the world. Jack Stephens is white (three-quarters Irish and one-quarter Guatemalan) and C is Pilipino. Despite this fact they are both unified in their thought on critiquing white privilege in American society and in combating its effects on people of color.